Nancy Sutley

Chosen for: Chairwoman, White House Council on Environmental Quality.

Is linked to Mr. Obama by: Carol M. Browner, administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency under President Bill Clinton and now a senior adviser to the Obama transition team on environmental and energy matters; Ms. Sutley served as her special assistant at the E.P.A. Ms. Sutley, now a deputy mayor for energy and environment in Los Angeles, is a member of the transition group reviewing the E.P.A. Mr. Obama is said to be likely to announce Ms. Sutley’s appointment as the council chairwoman in coming days, while Ms. Browner is expected to be named the top White House official on climate and energy policy.

Brings to the job: More than a decade in senior environmental, energy and water policy-making positions in California. She also has experience dealing with budget and legislative matters at the state and federal level. She is closely tied to figures in Los Angeles city and California state politics.

In her own words: “Cities are the first responders. If climate change causes more local forest fires, we have to deal with that on a city level. We can’t afford to wait for national or international action.” (Interview in 2007 with www.worldchanging.com, an environmental Web site.)

Used to work as: A member of the California State Water Resources Control Board and as the top energy adviser to former Gov. Gray Davis. From 1999-2003 she was deputy secretary for policy and intergovernmental relations at the California Environmental Protection Agency. Among her duties was serving as liaison to the federal E.P.A. and lobbying for California issues in Congress. She is a member of the Los Angeles Metropolitan Water District board of directors.

Carries as baggage: She was a prominent supporter of Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton’s primary campaign, and served as a close adviser to Mr. Davis, who was recalled and replaced by Arnold Schwarzenegger in 2003.

Also known for: Serving as a member of the Southern California lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender steering committee for Mrs. Clinton. She also raised questions about the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission’s oversight of electricity markets in California, which suffered power shortages and sharp price spikes in the early 2000s. And she supported a requirement that Los Angeles produce 20 percent of its power from renewable sources.

Biography: Born April 20, 1962, in New York ... holds a B.A. in government from Cornell and an M.A. in public policy from the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard ... a Mets fan and a devotee of Wallace and Gromit, the British claymation-style movie series about a scatterbrained inventor who is overly fond of cheese and his precocious dog.